Horror, Sleaze and Trash.

Wanda Holloway always dreamed of her 13-year-old daughter, Shanna, joining the cheerleading squad. Shanna wasn’t so keen but Wanda wanted to live vicariously through her teenage daughter and thought becoming a cheerleader would enhance her status at Channelview High School. “I wasn’t able to be a cheerleader when I was a girl. My daddy thought that all cheerleaders were whores,” she stated. As soon as she fell pregnant, she envisioned what her daughter would become. She brought Shanna her first cheerleading kit at just 5-years-old. The lengths she went to in an attempt to achieve this goal was unfathomable.

It was 1991 and Shanna tried out for the cheerleading squad. Her mother was distraught when she didn’t make the cut. She had just narrowly missed out because of fellow classmate, 13-year-old Amber Heath, who gave a better performance. Wanda was seething. She concocted a plan to have Amber’s mother, Verna Heath, murdered. She theorised that Amber would be so distraught about the death of her mother that she would quit the cheerleading team thus creating space for Shanna.
Wanda contacted her former brother-in-law, Terry Lynn Harper, and asked him to find a hitman. As soon as he got the call, he contacted police. They had an officer pose as a hitman and wear a wire. Initially, Wanda requested both Amber and her mother be killed but changed her mind when she heard the price of a double-murder. Just Verna would do, she decided. She then met with Terry and gave him a pair of expensive diamond earrings as a down payment on the hit. She was shortly arrested afterwards.

Wanda was was convicted of solicitation of capital murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison. This conviction was overthrown when it was uncovered that a juror was on probation for cocaine. During her second trial, Wanda admitted to the crime and earned a plea bargain. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison with a $10,000 fine. However, after just 6 months in prison, Wanda was released, serving the remaining 9 and a half years on probation.